Socially|Mundane

Unless you've been is somewhat of a vacuum of late, you already know Apple CEO Steve Jobs refuses to allow Adobe Flash (Player) on the iPhone OS, hence all "iDevices" will not and cannot play anything that requires the Flash Player.

There have been just-short-of-expletives lobbed at each other between Apple and Adobe, primarily between Apple CEO and Adobe Engineers. My personal opinion is that the Adobe side of the argument is outright laughable. They proclaim developers don't have a choice (by not being allowed to develop the Flash platform on iPhone OS) and that users of said iDevices don't have a choice to choose whether to use Flash Player or not.

I beg to differ.

Second Life in 2006: Gray Goo griefer (griever) attack shuts down the grid for a few days. Other griefer attacks are constantly creating an unstable grid, combined with the horrific instability and bugginess of the SL viewer makes Second life, at times, a terribly miserable place to be. Well, griefers always have been a part of Second Life, but it's become a lot better since then for the majority of grid-surfers. But the Woodbury institution was apparently a bee-hive of griefer activity, or at least a hideout.

I don't remember when I first started reading about "Woodbury" - an educational higher learning institution having their own sim and it always had to do with being a haven for griefers - at least according to all the articles I've read and what I've heard about.

Even though many of those article must be taken with a serious grain of salt as the "reporters" of these stories tend to sensationalize everything, there seems to be no doubt as to the "community" of the Woodbury region...or anything "Woodbury.

I don't really care to remember whether it was 2007 or 2008 when Linden Lab sank the Woodbry sim on grounds of... whatever. I don't recall if it was a billing issue or a griefer issue. But that's moot at this point.

Linden Lab to Woodbury: get the hell out and stay the hell out, have a nice life:

"Linden Lab has decided to no longer support Woodbury University in Second Life," said an E-mail notice from Linden Labs sent to Edward Clift, the dean of media, culture and design at Woodbury.

"We are making this decision based on historical and recent events that constitute a breach of the Second Life community standards and terms of service. We ask that you please respect the decision and do not take part in the Second Life platform in the future."

To me, it is ridiculously ironic that it has taken Linden Lab this long to drop the ban-hammer. Must be someone intimately involved with Woodbury as done something to call down the Linden thunder and that lightning has struck.

Of course the griefers of Woodbury will not fade away. They'll just disperse and regroup. The destroyed bee's nest that scatters the swarm, who only regroup later to build another nest. Often somewhere nearby.

/me shrugs.

I suppose it was nice knowing you, Woodbury.
Not.

link: California College Loses Second Life for a Second Time (usnews.com)

[art: 'Big Daddy K' via Flickr]

Last person on the region please turn the lights off.

I still am amazed at the amount of land-to-population ratio when it comes to the Second Life grid. I'm not even referring to the private estate regions, but rather the Linden mainland.

I remember seeing those television commercials for Philadelphia Cream Cheese where they loved to proclaim "ounce-for-ounce less than half the calories of butter!" However, when spreading that cream cheese over your toast or bagel, you need to spread it thick. Really thick else you won't even taste it. Thus, even though that brand of cream cheese might be less than half the calories of butter per ounce, you put three to four-times more of it onto your food, negating any benefit of "less calories". The only benefit is to spread the stuff thin. But then you can't even taste it.

It would seem the same is true with the second Life grid.

There are many who may not be genuine "newbies" in Second Life, but not yet of complete understanding with regard to the dynamics of the grid. So they will proclaim "Second Life is a ghost-town!" others will debunk it, but both are correct.